This work presents a first architecture-spreading study on field-programmable logical devices leaving the beaten tracks of commercial architecture improvements. After a formal model for general field-programmable architectures based on periodic graphs has been given, some feasible evaluation metrics for architectures and circuit layouts are defined characterizing structural properties of architectures in respect of chip area usage and performance. Then, a generic layout tool is developped working on arbitrary architecures and circuits. Finally,This work presents a first architecture-spreading study on field-programmable logical devices leaving the beaten tracks of commercial architecture improvements. After a formal model for general field-programmable architectures based on periodic graphs has been given, some feasible evaluation metrics for architectures and circuit layouts are defined characterizing structural properties of architectures in respect of chip area usage and performance. Then, a generic layout tool is developped working on arbitrary architecures and circuits. Finally, nine resource minimal mesh- and island-style architectures are compared.…